The Citizens Research Council of Michigan has released a new analysis of Michigan’s road system and found there are a lot of misconceptions about how roads should be funded in the state.
Speaking Tuesday, the council’s Eric Paul Dennis said the $3.9 billion per year commonly cited as the state’s road funding gap is probably inaccurate. Dennis said a critical analysis should be done on that figure, suggesting the real funding gap could be lower.
Another big takeaway is a finding that there’s really no correlation between higher road spending and better roads. Rather, Dennis said it’s more about how road funding is used. He recommended more coordination between local road agencies and the state to maintain roads that are in fair condition.
“This relates to the concept of dig once,” Dennis said. “Like, the classic example is trying not to rebuild a road and then coming back a year or two later to replace a water main. And some of this stuff is already happening, but there’s more opportunity for Michigan to be a leader here.”
Dennis said if road maintenance was done more strategically, then the state wouldn’t have so many previously fair roads that fall into poor condition.
Significantly, Dennis added Act 51, Michigan’s road funding law, has been out of date since the 1960s.
“I have no idea what a distribution formula would look like if we actually tried to rationalize funding distribution according to need. We’re just so far away from that now.”
Dennis said Act 51 is based on numbers from the 1950s that no longer apply. It considers things like population, registered vehicles in a county, and miles in a system. He suggested a new road funding model.
Citizens Research Council of Michigan President Eric Lupher said what it all comes down to is that the state needs to be smarter about how it uses its road resources.
“What you do with the money matters as much as how much money you have,” Lupher said. “So we recognize that Michigan has been underfunding the roads, but if we don’t fix what we do with the money once we get it, we’re just going to get more of the same, and that’s not great results.”
Overall, Dennis said Michigan’s road system ranks 40th out of the 50 states. You can find the full report right here.
